The Lost Bookshop(89)

‘I think it’s trying to tell me something,’ she said, plucking one of the leaves from the branches that formed an arc over her bed. She seemed bizarrely unfazed by it.

‘Yes, I think it is trying to tell you something very important about the unsound foundations of the house. You really need to have this looked at.’

She batted my concerns aside and put on the kettle for tea.

I moved in for a closer look at the tree. ‘Did you do this?’

‘What?’

‘What you seek is seeking you.’ It was carved on to the bark of the tree.

She stepped behind me and leaned over my shoulder.

‘No?’

I turned around to see her face. She looked different, somehow. As though the shadows she carried inside of her had been replaced by an iridescent light. She looked happy. Despite the tree. Or perhaps because of it.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Nothing. You look well, that’s all.’

She smiled and tilted her head to the side. It felt like a moment where one of us should say something, but neither of us could even begin putting our feelings into words.

‘Tea?’

I nodded.

She brought two mugs over to the small table and grabbed an open packet of digestives from a shelf above us.

‘So, what did you find out?’

I took a piece of paper out of the folder at random.

‘Far more than I had expected,’ I told her. ‘It’s put flesh on the bones – she’s a real person for me now. In fact, it’s thanks to you I’ve decided to change the angle of the paper I’m writing.’

She looked pleased but also confused. I handed her the letter and she began reading it aloud.

Dearest Jane, I hope this letter reaches you. The young girl who works here promised to post it in secret, but one can never be sure. It’s been snowing for a full five days now. There is something calming about it; how each snowflake falls weightlessly, without a sound. Every so often a slight breeze will cause a flurry of flakes to spin and swirl and lift over the walls of this place. A silent escape. How I long for the same. My only friend here, Mary, has died. I woke to find her lifeless in her bed this morning. From the cold. It has set into my bones so much that I cannot remember how it used to feel before. I received your letter in which you wrote that you hoped the gloves and shawl you’d sent were keeping out the chill. Oh, dearest Jane. If only you knew that anything of worth is taken away long before it reaches us inmates.

The physician is expected tomorrow. I think. My thoughts meander in a deep fog these days. Again I will ask to speak to my brother, again. I will request to be released for I am not mad, though I fear this place will render me so. The screams at night are unbearable. Why does Lyndon not answer my letters?

It does not surprise me that the doctors here have turned down your offer to bring a specialist from London. Having me assessed independently would prove that I have been wrongfully committed here, that I am sane. Although I fear it may be too late on that score. Losing the baby, and now Mary, in this place of unspeakable horrors, I would rather my sense leave me entirely. If I cannot escape this place physically, I must devise a way to do it mentally. To dissociate from this nightmare. Please do not write any more. Go and live your life. Consider your old friend no more. She no longer exists.

Opaline





‘Bloody hell. This is horrific. I never thought—’ She stopped suddenly.

‘I know, it’s all very real now.’ I put the letter back and dunked a digestive into my tea. I hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. I’d been up all night going through the folder and taking notes. I held the biscuit in the tea for a second too long and it sank into the depths. I sucked my teeth.

‘I’ll make you another one,’ she said and got up to refill the kettle. ‘I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again.’

‘Why do you say that?’

She shrugged but I pressed for an answer.

‘It’s just – you have what you need now. Opaline’s records.’

Wow. I’d really made quite the impression. Was that really what she thought? That all I cared about was the manuscript? I opened my mouth to say something, then thought better of it. What did it matter? I had to stop thinking that this could ever go anywhere. We were just friends.

‘You didn’t think I could leave without seeing her book, did you?’

She rolled her eyes and gave me a knowing look. It had been left on her bed and when she passed me to get it, I reached out for her hand, without thinking. She stopped and looked down at me.

‘It wasn’t all about the manuscript, you know. Not for me.’

I let her hand go but she didn’t move. A slight smile formed at the corner of her lips.

‘Thanks,’ she said, almost in a whisper, then she retrieved the book from the bed and brought it to me. I hadn’t expected it to look so elaborate. I had seen my fair share of rare editions and not many books made me gasp, but this one did. It was covered with a deep sapphire blue cloth, making the golden title jump off the front.

‘A Place Called Lost,’ I read aloud. There was a beautiful illustration of an old bookshop and I knew it was the one I had seen when I first arrived on Ha'penny Lane. I hadn’t been drunk. It really was there. I felt completely overcome and my nose started itching with what could disastrously become tears. I cleared my throat.